Amen.
I dont like the high ranking of stuff like 'Resolution' and 'Faster Processing Power' either, but at least further down the lists, Exclusive Games, and Fun Factor show up. At least the world hasn't completely lost the plot.
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Why are people buying their consoles? Nielsen survey results.
- Thread starter Hanmik
- Start date
Amen.
I dont like the high ranking of stuff like 'Resolution' and 'Faster Processing Power' either, but at least further down the lists, Exclusive Games, and Fun Factor show up. At least the world hasn't completely lost the plot.
hooijdonk17
Member
Actually, yeah, when I read faster processing power I assumed it was in comparison to the competition, not the product it was replacing.. Is this ever clarified in the study?
This post is meaningless, you will have selection bias regardless of sampling method. Even if it's completely random sampling you will still have voluntary contribution bias, which will skew the outcome to represent consumers who don't mind disclosing information. The fact that they actually explicitly stated any bias in their sampling methodology is a testament to its credibility, not contrary.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Housemarque should be proud their launch title is the number one reason people are buying PS4s.
...wait, what?
Are you really downplaying Nielsen here?
Holy shit dude.
...wait, what?
Are you really downplaying Nielsen here?
Holy shit dude.
Mr. Wedgewood
Member
Anyone own all three current gen systems and not really play on any of them? I spend more time reading about video games than actually playing them.
geordiemp
Member
Yes, based purely on statistic sample representivity. You would have to randomly canvas buyers from differing outlets to get a proper picture.
What type of person allows a company to monitor their purchases.....its not normal to me imo.
hooijdonk17
Member
GAF destroyed gaming for me. I haven't played a game on a console in over two years, and I have a huge console backlog. Nowadays I just play PC games, and I spend more time poring over digital sales and buying shit on Steam Sales than I do gaming. Welcome to the future where we pay to collect shit we don't even really own or enjoy.
GHG
Gold Member
Define "normal".
geordiemp
Member
Not really, random would remove some of the sample bias, as I just don't accept people who allow a company to monitor their purchases is a normal representation of people.
I agree that people who cant be bothered to fill it in (I am one of those) also misses the mark, 2 reasons why it is wrong. At least with random you only have the 1 reason (cant be bothered) so less bias.
I said Imo...Maybe for you or many don't mind some company tagging what they buy. I have never come across anyone who does that. But hey...
Majority of Nielsen surveys are filled out very wrong and majority of Nielsen workers can not read the surveys properly anyway.
hooijdonk17
Member
The fuck are you talking about? Surveying completely relies on voluntary parting of information.
lifeexpectancy
Member
Ahhh ok I see what you mean. Misunderstood your intent.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Not really. If I've consistently been happy with a brand's product, then a trust is developed, and I'll look into their future product before trying out something from a company I'm less familiar with.
I've found over the years, that New Balance makes the most comfortable sneakers I've worn. They are pretty much my "go to" brand when buying new sneakers.
geordiemp
Member
No need to swear. Read the link on how they conduct and get data. I will make it easy for you...
Read it and discuss. They have a group of survey people they use with purchase tagging....its not that complicated. Scanner says they bought a console, then they send a few question to that person who has signed up for it is what I am reading;
lifeexpectancy
Member
This. Any type of survey that relies on opt-in is inherently biased and therefore pointless.
hooijdonk17
Member
I have read it, it's a form of voluntary disclosure, it's something surveys ALWAYS rely on. Every kind of sampling is a form of bias, this is IMO no different than asking people for their preferences and only taking the answers you are given. Some people will always refrain from disclosing, and you can't help that. Actually, unvoluntary disclosure is a bias type on its own, i.e. people will actively try to mislead you. Regardless, it really sounds like you don't know what you're talking about here, I suggest you read up on surveying and sampling methods first. Believe me, Nielsen know their shit much better than you think.
aspiegamer
Member
Well, since you asked... Any internet user, ever, unless they've somehow magically evaded cookies and have never shopped online.
Also your bank, credit card companies, iTunes/Google Play and associated apps depending on permissions. Anything at all that happens while you're logged into a service and money changes hands. Then there's internal shopping metrics of individual retailers, political organizations with targeted marketing based on metadata they purchase... So even when it's not you specifically and personally being monitored it's the average of millions of people in your demographics and generally pretty reliable.
A few better question would be what people are miraculously not being monitored.
Edit: Oh, and all these things are technically of your own free will as well. Agreeing to TOSes and whatnot.
Brand is a no brainer surely? People associate a lot with the brand- online stability, the particular games available on it, its past legacy for people. Its rather vague as well. And why are people surprised that, in AMERICA, the Xbox brand carries weight?
If we're going to take this on face value then the PlayStation comes off rather poorly:
* Resolution and Blu-ray player are the top 2 reasons for owning a PS4? So isn't that proof then about the importance of media functionality on the PS4 that people have been downplaying for ages?
The survey suggests that PS4 gamers don't want innovative features or fun factor either.
So yeah, take the results of that survey with a pinch of salt I say.
If we're going to take this on face value then the PlayStation comes off rather poorly:
* Resolution and Blu-ray player are the top 2 reasons for owning a PS4? So isn't that proof then about the importance of media functionality on the PS4 that people have been downplaying for ages?
The survey suggests that PS4 gamers don't want innovative features or fun factor either.
So yeah, take the results of that survey with a pinch of salt I say.
GHG
Gold Member
So what exactly are all these people who took part biased towards?
Audioboxer
Member
Depends on how an individual defines brand.
If you have a brand loyalty due to hard statistics like support for previous products, honesty from the company, and a good track record of delivering enjoyable products it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's the legacy a successful company can be built on if you create a recognizable and trustworthy brand.
Not saying the above about any company in question here, just it's not totally black and white brand loyalty is bad. Yeah, sure, when people blindly support something not based upon evidence and reasoning they might not be thinking with a reasonable consumer mindset, but I've given a few counterarguments above where levelheaded people may have some sense of brand loyalty.
thewhitehawk
Member
I love how the main reasons why people buy the Xbox One are all false to some, or to a great, extent.
hooijdonk17
Member
Every survey is inherently opt-in, and they haven't been meaningless since the dawn of time.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
I'm curious what the data point is that has all of you "I don't know how much you know about statistics and data sampling (I'm an expert) but Nielsen just shot itself in the foot" folks in a tizzy?
lifeexpectancy
Member
What they're specifically biased toward is irrelevant. The fact that they opted-in for the survey reflects a certain personality type and therefore means the results will be skewed toward that personality type's buying decisions rather than a broad cross-spectrum of society as a whole.
This was explained in the post I quoted if you bothered to read it.
No, surveys that are question-answer format are often, but not always, opt-in for all intents and purposes, but they are not the only type of survey that can be conducted. Unfortunately even if we had a forced survey where every single person in the country were made to take it, the results would still be unreliable since a certain portion of participants might answer negatively out of spite. However, cases like that are why evaluative tools have methods in place for filtering out that type of 'noise'. There are certain surveys whose results are reliable to a certain degree of accuracy by using things like this and surveying each and every person participating in XYZ activity. Surveys like this one that are entirely voluntary don't fit that bill.
I am surprised brand matters so much to the Xbox One owners surveyed, It's not like Microsoft have done something amazing on the video games industry since they enter in the market, Without Gears Of War or halo, I wouldn't even look at it, crazy.
The PS4 was chosen for "better graphics" capability ? I'm ok with this, it make sense even If I bought it for Japanese games.
The Wii U is for kids ? really ? Nintendo will never, ever change people minds about their brand, I don't think Nintendo games are for kids only.
The PS4 was chosen for "better graphics" capability ? I'm ok with this, it make sense even If I bought it for Japanese games.
The Wii U is for kids ? really ? Nintendo will never, ever change people minds about their brand, I don't think Nintendo games are for kids only.
geordiemp
Member
OK, so Sony marketing and Cerny must really take notice that ONE of the main reasons Ps4 is almost 20 million and winning this generation is it has a blu ray player.
OK. Meaningful.
Sony pretend they don't understand the success of Ps4 when asked (shu quote), but they are not that daft. They even hinted that they understand by number of 360 players buying Ps4 they alluded to.
Sony even say it in almost every commercial, the worlds most powerful console. Sony know why they are successful this gem. they really do.
And the masses buy it t play 3rd party popular games like COD and GTA5.
OK. Meaningful.
Sony pretend they don't understand the success of Ps4 when asked (shu quote), but they are not that daft. They even hinted that they understand by number of 360 players buying Ps4 they alluded to.
Sony even say it in almost every commercial, the worlds most powerful console. Sony know why they are successful this gem. they really do.
And the masses buy it t play 3rd party popular games like COD and GTA5.
SolidSnakex
Member
#5 on the PS list is the one that every console manufacturer wants.
Velurian
Member
The fact that resolution is the main arugment for ps4 just shows how little average people understand of the all the info been thrown at them by Sony and MS.
Really surprising for me is that MS has the exclusives argument. I guess its a us survey and all the jrpg etc titles go unnoticed....
Really surprising for me is that MS has the exclusives argument. I guess its a us survey and all the jrpg etc titles go unnoticed....
Really?
Xbox live pretty much set the standard for console online activities, and the achievements system has been replicated on a number of systems.
Halph n Halph
Member
I prefer to think of Nintendo as family friendly " rather than a "kiddy system "
GHG
Gold Member
To say results of a survey are biased you would need evidence to show what the bias is towards. I'm not disagreeing with you but using bias in this context is somewhat incorrect.
You can definately question the accuracy of the survey against the rest of the population but I'm seeing words like biased and "not normal" being thrown about in this thread. Those are big statements to make about 250,000 people without anything to back it up.
hooijdonk17
Member
Eh, no. Forced surveys are a source of different kind of noise and bias altogether. There is no method of sampling that is bias free and no data that is without noise. How well you process this data determines your confidence in your results, and biases are taken into account when accounting for that. All in all, what Nielsen has done here is what any surveyer ever did, they ask you to participate; these people agreed to participate through the data collection method used in the survey. Is it a sampling bias - fuck yes, but it would be just another sampling bias if they went out and did the survey at a supermarket (you lose online sales), conducted the survey online (you lose store sales), via phone (you lose sample that does not use phones), etc. etc.
Just because it has some type of bias does not make the result meaningless, it means you need to take it into account with the bias in mind, and they have already provided you with their sampling and data collection methods.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
lifeexpectancy
Member
There's a difference between 'bias' (I think Brand X is better than Brand Y!) and 'bias' (results skewed more toward one end of the spectrum than another and not representative of society at large). Bias in the sense of being skewed/slanted, like cutting a banana on a 'bias', is not a negative thing, just an observation.
I don't use 'bias' in the negative connotation I think a lot of people are ascribing to it.
Exactly. I wasn't saying that they should've done a forced survey necessarily. What I meant was if they had done random sampling of 10,000 passers-by on the street, random sampling of 10,000 folks online, as well as a few other places rather than pulling their entire sampling pool from the same avenue, I'd be more inclined to trust the validity of their results. That's my whole point. Their results are too biased because they are too restrictive in their sampling methods here.
geordiemp
Member
No, its just a poor question.
Watch a sony commercial for Ps4, it finishes with the worlds most powerful console. There is your answer.
If the survey does not ask this but has a box for resolution, well you can fill in the blank.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Isn't the games suppose to be the 'fun factor' ? I don't know what's fun about the console itself lol.
All that should be under game library or exclusives.
All that should be under game library or exclusives.
archnemesis
Member
No, you don't. The company conducting the survey should state that they are using a representative sample, otherwise you can assume that the results are skewed.
The sample size for this study has not been revealed. The 250,000 households are from "across 25 countries" and the data in the OP is only from U.S. households.
You're saying online gaming would never have been a thing without Microsoft ? You're probably right, it would have stay free without them.
I'm not hating on achievements, i'm sure some people love them but it's not really a game changer on the video game industry, it's pointless to me.
Why are you guys taking this at face value? If you do, then it becomes a foundation for some ridiculous sentiments:
1) Xbox players care mostly about brand
2) PS4 gamers care about resolution over fun
3) Xbox players care more for exclusives
4) PS4 gamers don't care about fun factor (would explain the sale for the Order..teehee...JUST MESSING!)
Etc etc..
People are getting riled up over this for nothing. Someone on N4G made this ridiculous jump:
http://n4g.com/news/1680080/study-uncovers-xbox-owners-blind-loyalty-and-brand-delusion
"Study uncovers Xbox owners' blind loyalty and brand delusion"
1) Xbox players care mostly about brand
2) PS4 gamers care about resolution over fun
3) Xbox players care more for exclusives
4) PS4 gamers don't care about fun factor (would explain the sale for the Order..teehee...JUST MESSING!)
Etc etc..
People are getting riled up over this for nothing. Someone on N4G made this ridiculous jump:
http://n4g.com/news/1680080/study-uncovers-xbox-owners-blind-loyalty-and-brand-delusion
"Study uncovers Xbox owners' blind loyalty and brand delusion"
hooijdonk17
Member
Being skewed towards a specific subset of the population is a sampling bias only if that population does not properly represent the population as a whole with regards to what you are surveying; are you certain these people who are NOT NORMAL buy their consoles in a different mindset? Even if they aren't, are you sure that the difference is statistically significant? It's POSSIBLY a bias, but not necesserily.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
I'm curious where all the anti-Nielsen backlash was when they said
Were those estimates way off?
for PS4 and Xbox Ones launch christmas.
Were those estimates way off?
That's not what I am saying, and you know it.
Regardless of what you think about the stiff colllar, M$ corporate behemoth image that people like to purport, that does no good, and is wholly bad, the fact of the matter is, they have done some good things for gaming as a whole.
lifeexpectancy
Member
The population as a whole is every single 8th generation console owner in the world, of which there are what.... over 30 million if you count XB1/PS4/Wii U owners? Probably less since a lot may own more than one or even all 3.
The survey includes '250,000 households worldwide', but since they weren't standing on street corners, in checkout lines, in online forums and message boards, on their own survey site, culling data from amazon/bb/ebay/etc online, and on and on and on, their results are skewed toward the participants that opted to fill out a survey based on their product-purchasing decisions.
Considering the 'big brother' fears millions of people have around the world, as evidenced by the big hoopla over XB1's always online and kinect-mandatory requirements, I'm guessing (yes, admitting to guessing... I'm no statistician) there is a huge swath of console owners that aren't represented by this survey.
There are probably oodles of folks, for instance, whose children have just recently become old enough that their parents felt them to be ready to have a home games console. These types of households may not have had a 7th gen console. We don't know. Are these the types of people that would've opted-in for this survey? Probably not. Who knows. I'm not a psychologist either.
Despite my protestations, I can't say with any degree of certainty the survey is skewed in the manner in which I think it is. Then again, you cannot say with any degree of certainty that it isn't. That's why I think it's pointless. Feels like navel-gazing to me.
Damnit, where'd I put that lint?
The only thing funnier than this post is seeing it next to your avatar XD
StrongBlackVine
Banned
PS4 has games ranked higher then the other 2 consoles. Biggest selection of games and better version(resolution) of the multiplatform games. Seems to mesh with what we know.
Xbox brand and media functions.
Nintendo...well
Xbox brand and media functions.
Nintendo...well
While we're all laying into the survey 
"Which of the following are the main reasons" means you can only pick from the reasons they've given. None of which seem to be "Because it's the console all my friends are getting and I want to be able to swap games and play online with them"... What other options are missing?
"Which of the following are the main reasons" means you can only pick from the reasons they've given. None of which seem to be "Because it's the console all my friends are getting and I want to be able to swap games and play online with them"... What other options are missing?